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Zero failures sampling plans have been widely established in quality management and control. Their performance is better than sampling plans that allow failures. This is reflected in the operating characteristic (OC) curve. The OC-curve gives the likelihood of acceptance of a random sample as a function of the proportion of defective devices in a population. In this paper, we add information to the sampling plan. If a failure occurs in the sample and a countermeasure is implemented, we consider the effectiveness of this countermeasure as well. In reliability engineering, this concept is known as fractional failures. Taking this additional information into account and increasing the size of the random sample leads to sampling plans that have at least the same performance as zero failures sampling plans. The consumer's risk is controlled as well as the producer's risk. The results are very easy to handle and very transparent in the communication between producers and their customers. This method gives an alternative way how zero failures sampling plans can be realized and assessed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the population protocol model [Angluin et al. 2006], it is impossible to design a self-stabilizing leader election protocol without any knowledge of the exact number of nodes in the system. The notion of loose-stabilization, which relaxes the closure requirement of self -stabilization, was introduced in 2009 to circumvent this impossibility. The notion can be described as follows: a loosely-stabilizing protocol guarantees that, starting from any initial configuration, a system reaches a safe configuration eventually, and after that, the system maintains its specification (e.g., the unique leader) not forever, but for a sufficiently long time. The previous work of the authors presented a loosely-stabilizing protocol that solves the leader election on complete graphs using only a given upper bound $N$N on the number of nodes $n$n in the system, instead of the exact value of $n$n. In this paper, we propose two loosely-stabilizing protocols that solve leader election for arbitrary graphs. One is a deterministic protocol that uses the unique identifiers of nodes while the other is a probabilistic protocol that works on anonymous networks. Given an upper bound $N$N on the number of nodes, both protocols maintain a unique leader for $\Omega (Ne^{2N})$Ω(Ne2N) expected steps (holding time) after entering a safe configuration. The first algorithm enters a safe configuration within $O(mN \, \log n)$O(mNlogn) expected steps (convergence time) while the second one does this within $O(mN^2\,\log N)$O(mN2logN) expected steps, where $m$m is the number of edges in the graph. Both protocols require only $O(\log N)$O(logN) bits for each node's memory. A novel concept, called the same speed timer is introduced, by which all nodes of the system can count down their timers at the same speed. This concept allows to achieve fast convergence time of both algorithms. To design the second protocol, we design a self-stabilizing two-hop coloring protocol, which is interesting in its own right. This protocol uses only $O(\log N)$O(logN) memory space per node. We establish a lower bound. Any loosely-stabilizing leader election protocol with expected exponential holding time requires $\Omega (mN)$Ω(mN) expected convergence time. This lower bound shows a near-optimality of the first algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we present a novel generalized multiparticle drift-diffusion (mp-DD) model capable to overcome some limitations imposed by the classic drift-diffusion model by taking into account multiple carrier populations. We demonstrate the model’s ability and flexibility in simulating systems from different application contexts. We conclude that the developed mp-DD model allows investigating a wide range of complex mechanisms, such as subband charge transport calculation or intersystem crossing (ISC), which are crucial for the understanding and design of organic and inorganic semiconductor devices largely employed for both photovoltaics and light emitting applications. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, we have witnessed the explosion of large-scale data in various fields. Classical statistical methodologies, such as linear regression or generalized linear regression, often show inadequate performance on heterogeneous data because the key homogeneity assumption fails. In this paper, we present a flexible framework to handle heterogeneous populations that can be naturally grouped into several ordered subtypes. A local model technique utilizing ordinal class labels during the training stage is proposed. We define a new “progression score” that captures the progression of ordinal classes, and use a truncated Gaussian kernel to construct the weight function in a local regression framework. Furthermore, given the weights, we apply sparse shrinkage on the local fitting to handle high dimensionality. In this way, our local model is able to conduct variable selection on each query point. Numerical studies show the superiority of our proposed method over several existing ones. Our method is also applied to the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative data to make predictions on the longitudinal clinical scores based on different modalities of baseline brain image features. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Location-based social media have been extensively utilized in the concept of “social sensing” to exploit dynamic information about human activities, yet joint uses of social sensing and remote sensing images are underdeveloped at present. In this paper, the close relationship between the number of Twitter users and brightness of nighttime lights (NTL) over the contiguous United States is calculated and geotagged tweets are then used to upsample a stable light image for 2013. An associated outcome of the upsampling process is the solution of two major problems existing in the NTL image, pixel saturation, and blooming effects. Compared with the original stable light image, digital number (DN) values of the upsampled stable light image have larger correlation coefficients with gridded population (0.47 versus 0.09) and DN values of the new generation NTL image product (0.56 versus 0.52), i.e., the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite day/night band image composite. In addition, total personal incomes of states are disaggregated to each pixel in proportion to the DN value of the pixel in the NTL images and then aggregate by counties. Personal incomes distributed by the upsampled NTL image are closer to the official demographic data than those distributed by the original stable light image. All of these results explore the potential of geotagged tweets to improve the quality of NTL images for more accurately estimating or mapping socioeconomic factors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The physical unclonable function (PUF) based on resistive random-access memory (RRAM) possesses a distinctive advantage that can offer higher security and lower cost than the traditional complementary metal–oxide–semiconductor-based cryptographic devices and other conventional PUFs. The intrinsic stochasticity of RRAM devices successfully provides attractive properties to implement PUF. In this paper, we present a novel multistate-based RRAM PUF to realize strong tolerance against attack. By applying multilevel states with bit shuffling to the RRAM PUF, the randomness and uniqueness were enhanced close to ideal values. In addition, the bit error rate was dramatically reduced using the temperature compensation mechanism. Moreover, our new method not only enables the generation of larger challenge–response pairs (CRPs) with less footprint but also can reconfigure CRPs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Brain storm optimization (BSO) is a swarm intelligence optimization algorithm inspired by the collective behavior of human beings in solving problems. This paper provides a conceptual overview and detailed explanation of the BSO algorithm. For the first time, the effectiveness of BSO in electromagnetic applications is demonstrated using a Yagi–Uda antenna design and a Luneburg lens antenna design, and this effectiveness is further validated via optimization, prototyping, and measurement of a dual-band slotted patch antenna design. In addition, a novel binary version of BSO (BBSO) for optimizing discrete problems is proposed, and the process of transforming the concept of BSO into a binary language is discussed in detail. A method for selecting algorithm parameter values for BBSO is shown. Finally, BBSO is applied successfully to an array thinning example and a pixelated patch antenna design. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Current regulations leave a few television (TV) white spaces in populated urban areas where spectrum shortage is mostly experienced. As TV set feedback becomes essential in the next generation terrestrial TV standard, an opportunistic TV spectrum sharing based on TV receiver activity information and transmit power control is proposed to exploit the underutilized active TV channels. Based on investigation of the spatial–spectral–temporal characteristics of TV receiver activities, analytical models are developed to capture the spatio-temporal distributions of available spectrum and corresponding capacity. The influence of multiple factors, such as feedback delay, spectrum handover overhead, ranking order, and distribution of TV channel popularity are discussed and modeled. The proposed power control mechanism is verified through experiments at representative campus and residential environments. Empirical data-based simulations and geographic analyses are conducted to evaluate the developed models and further profile the spectrum opportunities within a cell, across New York city (NYC) and other 273 cities in the United States. In NYC, the proposed solution provides a $3.8$ – $11.7$ -fold increase of average spectrum availability, and $2.5$ – $6.6$ -fold increase of capacity from current regulations. By investigating the feasibility and prospects of this approach, this paper intends to motivate further discussions in policy, business, and privacy aspects to reach its significant potential. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The demand for automatic extraction of true information (i.e., truths) from conflicting multi-source data has soared recently. A variety of truth discovery methods have witnessed great successes via jointly estimating source reliability and truths. All existing truth discovery methods focus on providing a point estimator for each object's truth, but in many real-world applications, confidence interval estimation of truths is more desirable, since confidence interval contains richer information. To address this challenge, in this paper, we propose a novel truth discovery method (ETCIBoot) to construct confidence interval estimates as well as identify truths, where the bootstrapping techniques are nicely integrated into the truth discovery procedure. Due to the properties of bootstrapping, the estimators obtained by ETCIBoot are more accurate and robust compared with the state-of-the-art truth discovery approaches. The proposed framework is further adapted to deal with large-scale truth discovery task in distributed paradigm. Theoretically, we prove the asymptotical consistency of the confidence interval obtained by ETCIBoot. Experimentally, we demonstrate that ETCIBoot is not only effective in constructing confidence intervals but also able to obtain better truth estimates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many statistical estimation procedures lead to nonconvex optimization problems. Algorithms to solve these problems are often guaranteed to output a stationary point of the optimization problem. Oracle inequalities are an important theoretical instrument to assess the statistical performance of an estimator. Oracle results have focused on the theoretical properties of the uncomputable (global) minimum or maximum. In this paper, a general framework used for convex optimization problems to derive oracle inequalities for stationary points is extended. A main new ingredient of these oracle inequalities is that they are sharp: they show closeness to the best approximation within the model plus a remainder term. We apply this framework to different estimation problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In sponsored content and service markets, the content and service providers are able to subsidize their target mobile users through directly paying the mobile network operator to lower the price of the data/service access charged by the network operator to the mobile users. The sponsoring mechanism leads to a surge in mobile data and service demand, which in return compensates for the sponsoring cost and benefits the content/service providers. In this paper, we study the interactions among the three parties in the market, namely, the mobile users, the content/service providers, and the network operator, as a two-level game with multiple Stackelberg (i.e., leader) players. Our study is featured by the consideration of global network effects owning to consumers’ grouping. Since the mobile users may have bounded rationality, we model the service-selection process among them as an evolutionary-population follower sub-game. Meanwhile, we model the pricing-then-sponsoring process between the content/service providers and the network operator as a non-cooperative equilibrium searching problem. By investigating the structure of the proposed game, we reveal a few important properties regarding the equilibrium existence and propose a distributed, projection-based algorithm for iterative equilibrium searching. Simulation results validate the convergence of the proposed algorithm and demonstrate how sponsoring helps improve both the providers’ profits and the users’ experience. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the problem of energy consumption management of a large population of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). A PHEV can be derived either on its gasoline or the battery modes while traveling, and can be either charged from or discharged to the grid while parking at home, respectively. This feature is the main novel consideration in our system model, besides taking into account the constraints like traveling time and distance, and the bounds on the charging power and state of charge of the battery. On the basis of the proposed model of PHEV, the optimal battery-gasoline energy management strategy is obtained in order to minimize the cost of energy and battery degradation for each user. Such a strategy can also compensate the peak load. Since the strategy of each PHEV affects other users’ cost through the electricity price, we model such an interaction as a game problem and we prove that there exist a unique Nash equilibrium point of the game. Then, due to the fact that the effect of a single PHEV of a large population on the other users’ costs is negligible, the theory of mean filed (MF) game is utilized to develop a decentralized control strategy for PHEVs. The lightweight information exchange of the proposed MF algorithm ensures a low computational cost and communication overhead. The proof of convergence for the proposed algorithm is given and it is shown that as the number of PHEVs goes to infinity the MF optimal strategy of the players converges to the unique Nash equilibrium point of the game. In simulation results, the effectiveness of the proposed method in terms of demand side management, peak shaving, convergence rate, and robustness is studied. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analysis of spatio-temporal signals plays an important role in various fields including sociology, climatology, and environmental studies, etc. Due to the abrupt breakdown of the sensors in the sensor network, there always are missing entries in the observed spatio-temporal signals. In this paper, we study the problem of recovering spatio-temporal signals from partially known entries. Based on both the global and local correlated property of spatio-temporal signals, we propose a low rank and differential smoothness based recovery method (LRDS), which novelly introduces the differential smooth prior of time-varying graph signals to the field of spatio-temporal signal analysis. The performance of the proposed method is analyzed theoretically. Considering the case where a priori information about the signal's global pattern is available, we propose prior LRDS to further improve the reconstruction accuracy. Such improvement is also verified by synthetic experiments. Besides, experiments on several real-world datasets demonstrate the improvement on recovery accuracy of the proposed LRDS over the state-of-the-art spatio-temporal signal recovery methods. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a new optimization tool based on the cross-entropy (CE) method to assess security-constrained optimal power flow (SCOPF) solutions. First, the corresponding SCOPF stochastic problem is defined so that the optimum solution is interpreted as a rare event to be reached by a random search. Second, the CE method solves this new problem efficiently by making adaptive changes to the probability density function according to the Kullback–Leibler distance, creating a sequence of density functions that guides the search in the direction of the theoretically degenerate density at the optimal point. Different types of density functions are tested in order to cope with discrete variables present in the SCOPF problem. Two test systems, namely the IEEE 57 bus and the IEEE 300 bus, are used to evaluate the effectiveness of the proposed method in terms of solution quality and computational effort. Comparisons carried out with reference algorithms in the literature demonstrate that the CE method is capable of finding better solutions for the SCOPF problem with fewer evaluations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we derive mutual information based upper bounds on the number of nonadaptive group tests required to identify a given number of “non-defective” items from a large population containing a small number of “defective” items. In the asymptotic regime with the population size $N \rightarrow \infty$ , to identify $L$ nondefective items out of a population containing $K$ defective items, our results show that $\frac{C_s K}{1-o(1)} (\Phi (\alpha _0, \beta _0) + o(1))$ measurements are sufficient when the tests are reliable. Here, $C_s$ is a constant independent of $N, K$ , and $L$ , and $\Phi (\alpha _0, \beta _0)$ is a bounded function of $\alpha _0 \triangleq \lim _{N\rightarrow \infty } \frac{L}{N-K}$ and $\beta _0 \triangleq \lim _{N\rightarrow \infty } \frac{K}{N-K}$. In contrast, the necessary number of tests using the conventional approach of first identifying the $K$ defective items and picking the required number of nondefective items from the complement set grows with $N$ as $O\left(K \log N \right)$. We also derive upper bounds on the number of tests under both dilution and additive noise models. Our results are obtained under a very general sparse signal model, by virtue of which, they are also applicable to other important sparse signal based applications such as compressive sensing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contribution: This paper shows that participating in a year-round program for African–American male middle school students (ages 10–14) can positively impact their attitudes toward STEM, their confidence in problem solving and team work, and their interest in STEM careers, but may not impact the interest in taking STEM classes to the same extent. Background: Increasing the number of under-represented minorities pursuing degrees in science and engineering through formal and informal learning activities has been a focus in the United States for many years. Efforts to diversify the engineering workforce have often targeted students in high school and college (ages 15–22), with varying success. Intended Outcomes: This program was designed to increase participants’ content knowledge, interest in STEM courses, interest in STEM careers, interest in attending college, and improve their attitudes about STEM. Application Design: Approaches used included: 1) introducing software tools that encouraged critical thinking, creativity and independent learning; 2) integrating engineering and software design processes; 3) providing projects that were age- and culturally-appropriate; and 4) using ethnically matched mentors. Findings: After almost two years in the program participants show improved attitudes toward STEM, more interest and career choices in computing and engineering, and increased interest in attending college. These findings suggested that summer and academic year programs can be effective for cultivating interest in computing and engineering careers, but their impact on interest in studying related subjects may need further study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The most common scheme for estimating the orientation field of space-varying directional textures is based on a local nonlinear spatial averaging of the gradient field. This leads to locally biased orientations, especially in regions of nonlinearly distributed convergence, asymmetrically distributed curvature, or geometry superposition. In this paper, we propose an orientation estimation framework that is invariant toward the local geometry. Instead of applying the spatial averaging in the initial space, it is performed in a flattened space which is obtained from a parametric space transformation model deduced from the reconstruction of local hypersurfaces. The flattening can either be applied to the initial gradient field or to the intensity image, on which the flattened gradient field is computed. The process is iterated in order to define more accurate space transformations leading to refined orientation estimation. The computational efficiency is improved without noticeable loss of orientation accuracy by a patch-based approach. Experiments, both on synthetic as well as real-life fingerprint and fibrous material images, exhibit enhanced performance in comparison with conventional methods such as the structure tensor method. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Expansion of the distribution network and close distance of distribution transformers lead to allocation of excessive surge arresters, while the number of arresters failures in the traditional routine may cause unwanted power outages. Therefore, this paper aims to propose a method to decrease the number of surge arresters as well as keep overvoltage protection of the network in the event of direct lightning strokes. According to different bus structures of the distribution network, elimination of allocated arresters is carried out by investigation of their protective distances at different stroke conditions. A guideline is presented for the IEEE 34-bus distribution system and the outcome is compared with the standard. The analysis is also carried out for a practical distribution network at West Mazandaran Power Distribution Company, Mazandaran, Iran. Possibilities for the elimination of surge arresters at the transformer station and installation of new transformers without allocation of new arresters are investigated in the analysis. Simulations are carried out based on the standard 8/20 lightning current wave at a transient analysis of DIgSILENT. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper presents the impact of different explanatory variables, such as remote control availability and conducted preventive maintenance, among others, on failure statistics of a disconnector population in Sweden using the proportional hazard model. To do so, 2191 work orders were analyzed, which included 1626 disconnectors and 278 major failures. Here, the results show that the remote control availability for disconnectors—an example of such smart-grid technology—has a negative effect on the failure rate, whereas preventive maintenance has a positive impact. It is also shown that the disconnector age is not significant and that certain disconnector types have a significant and positive correlation toward failures when compared to other disconnector types. The results increase the understanding of disconnector failures to improve asset management. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The human visual system is not very sensitive to the absolute luminance of an image, but rather responds to local luminance changes, i.e., the gradient of an image. In this paper, we propose a constrained optimization approach for image gradient enhancement. The gradient strength of the enhanced image can be controlled directly using a target gradient strength parameter in the cost function. To suppress artifacts and ensure that contrast improves, a novel constraint is included in the optimization. Due to the number of variables in optimization-based image enhancement techniques being equal to the number of gray scales, we quantize the image using a $k$ -means clustering-based histogram mergence (KCHM) method before enhancement. KCHM can significantly reduce the number of image gray scales while effectively preserving the subjective quality. This is useful considering the reduction of variables is good for solving optimization and reducing computation cost. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed method can significantly improve the subjective image quality by enhancing both the contrast and the image gradient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An analytical approach and a control strategy are proposed in Part I of this two-part paper for leveraging the aggregate demand of a population of thermostatically-controlled loads (TCLs) to deliver contingency-type reserve capacity. Further, a metric is introduced to quantify the TCL users' comfort satisfaction in response to a control signal. In Part II, we address the validation of the concepts put forth in the first part of the paper. To do so, we develop an extensive set of case studies based upon a population of 10\thinspace000 electric water heaters (EWH). Here, a physically-based model is first derived for the calculation of EWHs on-time statistics. The model is then extended to calculate the probability of EWH users' comfort satisfaction. The analytical approach and control strategy presented in Part I are validated using the EWH model against Monte Carlo simulations. Further, the trade-off between demand response capacity and EWH users' comfort satisfaction is investigated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to provide the ancillary service for smart grid, this paper proposes a modelling and control protocol design approach for the aggregation of heterogeneous thermostatically controlled loads (TCLs). A 2-D state bin is proposed to model the second-order TCL dynamics in a population model. Detailed procedure of calculating the transition probability in the system matrix is provided. In the controller design, a model predictive control (MPC) scheme is proposed to obtain the optimal control actions along the prediction horizon. In addition, implementation of the control signal for adjusting TCLs' statuses are also investigated with practical situations considered. Simulation results reveal the feasibility and efficacy of the proposed modelling and control approach when applied on a large population of TCLs. Some factors that may affect the service performance are also discussed in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a hybrid algorithm based on the genetic algorithm (GA) and the evolution strategy (ES) for the electromagnetic optimization problem. The GA is not good enough at times in searching the optimal solution from the view point of the convergence speed and the solution quality, while the ES has the risk of being trapped in a local minimum. The hybrid algorithm is composed of GA and ES in order to make up for these defects. First, we reached the vicinity of optimal solution using the GA. Then, the ES is used to find the accurate optimal solution. The switching point can be a main issue, which is also resolved in this paper. First, the performance of the convergence speed and the solution accuracy are comparatively tested using the known functions. In addition, the optimized design of the 2.45 GHz coplanar waveguide-fed circularly polarized antenna is carried out as a practical application. Only the GA and the hybrid algorithm reach the satisfactory value, and the more rapid convergence can be shown by the ES in this hybrid method after 380 iterations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studies the behavior of regularized Tyler estimators (RTEs) of scatter matrices. The advantages of these estimators are twofold. First, they guarantee by construction a good conditioning of the estimate and second, being derivatives of robust Tyler estimators, they inherit their robustness properties, notably their resilience to outliers. Nevertheless, one major problem that poses the use of RTEs is represented by the question of setting the regularization parameter \rho . While a high value of \rho is likely to push all the eigenvalues away from zero, it comes at the cost of a larger bias with respect to the population covariance matrix. A deep understanding of the statistics of RTEs is essential to come up with appropriate choices for the regularization parameter. This is not an easy task and requires working under asymptotic regimes wherein the number of observations n and/or their size N increase together. First asymptotic results have recently been obtained when N and n are large and commensurable. Interestingly, no results concerning the regime of n going to infinity with N fixed exist. This motivates our work. In particular, we prove in this paper that the RTEs converge to a deterministic matrix when n\to \infty with N fixed, which is expressed as a function of the theoretical covariance matrix. We also derive the fluctuations of the RTEs around this limit and establish that these fluctuations converge in distribution to a multivariate Gaussian distribution with parameters depending on the population covariance and the regularization coefficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper proposes a methodology to determine a realistic time-dependent dielectric breakdown failure rate. The in-die constant voltage stress was performed to determine the chip level Weibull shape ( \beta \mathrm{die}) and voltage acceleration factor, while a voltage ramp (Vramp) is performed in production line (inline Vramp) to determine the via-to-line and line-to-line spacing distributions. We found that for the chip population with spacing ( $s$ ) smaller than 4 nm, the in-die voltage accelerations based on power-law and sqrt-V models do not lead to a significant difference in the lifetime prediction. For the chips with large spacing, the stress voltage ( $\sim 20$ V) is significantly higher than the operating voltage (1 V). The extrapolation using the power law results in an infinitely long lifetime, which could lead to an overoptimistic reliability prediction. In this paper, a new method is introduced for a more realistic failure rate calculation, which is the superposition of the failure rates of chips with small spacing ( $s<4$ nm) and the failure rates of chips with large spacing, by using different voltage acceleration models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Power converters systems aimed at renewable energy applications have become a common option for sustainable electricity and distributed generation, since their performance has improved, and prices have steadily been reduced in the last years. However, there are still several drawbacks that hinder their widespread installation, such as the simultaneous minimization of cost and volume, efficiency maximization, size reduction, etc. Quite often, accomplishing these goals requires dealing with complicated optimization problems, which are difficult to solve by classical methods. Metaheuristic techniques provide a viable alternative to solve complex intricate optimization problems, such as those encountered in the development of power electronics converters. This paper presents a comprehensive coverage of metaheuristic methodologies applied in the area of power converters. The review includes a classification of the methodologies and main objective functions in each paper surveyed. An aim for this paper is to highlight the importance of the optimization tools, and the many benefits they provide to tackle the challenges encountered in the design, operation, and control of power converters. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scheduling for directed acyclic graph (DAG) tasks with the objective of minimizing makespan has become an important problem in a variety of applications on heterogeneous computing platforms, which involves making decisions about the execution order of tasks and task-to-processor mapping. Recently, the chemical reaction optimization (CRO) method has proved to be very effective in many fields. In this paper, an improved hybrid version of the CRO method called HCRO (hybrid CRO) is developed for solving the DAG-based task scheduling problem. In HCRO, the CRO method is integrated with the novel heuristic approaches, and a new selection strategy is proposed. More specifically, the following contributions are made in this paper. (1) A Gaussian random walk approach is proposed to search for optimal local candidate solutions. (2) A left or right rotating shift method based on the theory of maximum Hamming distance is used to guarantee that our HCRO algorithm can escape from local optima. (3) A novel selection strategy based on the normal distribution and a pseudo-random shuffle approach are developed to keep the molecular diversity. Moreover, an exclusive-OR (XOR) operator between two strings is introduced to reduce the chance of cloning before new molecules are generated. Both simulation and real-life experiments have been conducted in this paper to verify the effectiveness of HCRO. The results show that the HCRO algorithm schedules the DAG tasks much better than the existing algorithms in terms of makespan and speed of convergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Modern engines feature a considerable number of adjustable control parameters. With this increasing number of degrees of freedom (DoFs) for engines and the consequent considerable calibration effort required to optimize engine performance, traditional manual engine calibration or optimization methods are reaching their limits. An automated and efficient engine optimization approach is desired. In this paper, interdisciplinary research on a multiobjective evolutionary algorithm (MOEA)-based global optimization approach is developed for a homogeneous charge compression ignition (HCCI) engine. The performance of the HCCI engine optimizer is demonstrated by the cosimulation between an HCCI engine Simulink model and a Strength Pareto Evolutionary Algorithm 2 (SPEA2)-based multiobjective optimizer Java code. The HCCI engine model is developed by Simulink and validated with different engine speeds (1500–2250 r/min) and indicated mean effective pressures (IMEPs) (3–4.5 bar). The model can simulate the HCCI engine's indicated specific fuel consumption (ISFC) and indicated specific hydrocarbon (ISHC) emissions with good accuracy. The introduced MOEA optimization is an approach to efficiently optimize the engine ISFC and ISHC simultaneously by adjusting the settings of the engine's actuators automatically through the SPEA2. In this paper, the settings of the HCCI engine's actuators are intake valve opening (IVO) timing, exhaust valve closing (EVC) timing, and relative air-to-fuel ratio $\lambda$. The cosimulation study and experimental validation results show that the MOEA engine optimizer can find the optimal HCCI engine actuators' settings with satisfactory accuracy and a much lower time consumption than usual. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Pulsed electric field (PEF) treatment can be used for non-thermal inactivation of microorganisms. The aim of this paper is to investigate PEF treatment of yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, using three different field waveforms: square; non-oscillating exponential and oscillating exponential. The PEF system used in this paper consists of a pulsed power supply and a parallel-plane metallic electrodes treatment cell located in an air-pressurised chamber. PEF treatment of the yeast was conducted using electric field impulses with magnitudes of 67 kV/cm and 80 kV/cm. The efficacy of the PEF treatment for inactivation of the yeast cells was assessed by comparison of the PEFtreated and untreated yeast populations. Results showed that ~3-log10 reduction in the yeast population can be achieved with 100 impulses using all tested waveforms. Amongst all three tested waveforms non-oscillating exponential impulses demonstrated improved PEF performance. The effect of duration of treatment and peak magnitude of the field on the PEF process is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Energy storage systems (ESSs) play a significant role in performance improvement of future electric traction systems. This paper investigates an ESS based on supercapacitors for trams as a reliable technical solution with considerable energy saving potential. Operating the ESS onboard a tram brings the following benefits: reduction of peak power demands, decrease of power consumption, improvement of performance, and efficiency. Whereas the commonly used ESS power management (PM) has been dealing only with PM without vehicle position knowledge, the main emphasis of the presented research is put on position-based Takagi–Sugeno fuzzy (T-S fuzzy) PM for human-driven trams with an ESS. The tram position, located by, e.g., a Global Positioning System module, is used to predict future energy demands and power flows. This information is used in the preparation of the supercapacitor energy level and its power flow control. The optimal ESS power flow with respect to the tram position is a very complex problem. Therefore, soft computing techniques are used in this paper. The main part of the proposed ESS PM is the T-S fuzzy controller. The T-S fuzzy reduces problem dimensionality using expert knowledge represented by the rules. The output membership functions were optimized by differential evolution. The designed ESS PM was verified on real traffic data. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper addresses the integrated volt-var control for distribution network operation via multiobjective optimization. This paper seeks to explore the problem of energy savings and peak demand relief through the voltage reduction procedure. Currently, due to the emergence of the distribution smart grids, these procedures are gaining renewed interest and attention. The proposal presented here is for the operation phase, with a strategy based on an hourly load forecast for the next day/week, taking into account the active power intake reduction, and the voltage deviation. Therefore, the result is a set of nondominated optimal solutions, and then one may decide when, where, and how to apply them to meet different goals. The obtained solutions, for two typical distribution networks, describe relevant economic and technical benefits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Energy storage systems play a significant role in both distributed power systems and utility power systems. Among the many benefits of an energy storage system, the improvement of power system cost and voltage profile can be the salient specifications of storage systems. Studies show that improper size and placement of energy storage units leads to undesired power system cost as well as the risk of voltage stability, especially in the case of high renewable energy penetration. To solve the problem, a hybrid multi-objective particle swarm optimization (HMOPSO) approach is proposed in the paper to minimize the power system cost and improve the system voltage profiles by searching sitting and sizing of storage units under consideration of uncertainties in wind power production. Furthermore, the probability cost analysis is first put forward in this paper. The proposed HMOPSO combines multi-objective particle swarm optimization (MOPSO) algorithm with elitist nondominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) and probabilistic load flow technique. It also incorporates a five-point estimation method (5PEM) for discretizing wind power distribution. The IEEE 30-bus system is adopted to perform case studies. The simulation results for each case clearly demonstrate the necessity for optimal storage allocation, and the effectiveness of the proposed method. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Quantifying the impact of new technologies on a single distribution feeder is a tractable analysis problem. But the analysis of a single distribution feeder does not provide insight into the complexities and variations of a system-wide deployment. The inability to extrapolate system-wide impacts hinders the deployment of many promising new technologies. This paper presents a three-stage method of extrapolating technological impacts, either simulated or from a field demonstration, from a limited number of distribution feeders to the entire system. The size of the system can vary from the service territory of a single utility, to a region, or to an entire country. The paper will include an example analysis using the United States Department of Energy funded Smart Grid Investment Grant projects, extrapolating their benefits to a national level, and an example of a regionalized deployment of Volt-VAR optimization for peak demand reduction. Both of the example analyses utilize the presented three-stage extrapolation method. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Evolutionary algorithms (EAs) have become the standards and paradigms for solving inverse problems. However, their two inherited operations, namely, the crossover and mutation operations, are complicated and difficult, both in theory and in numerical implementations. In this regard, increasing efforts have been devoted to EAs which are based on probabilistic models (EAPMs) to overcome the shortcomings of available EAs. The population-based incremental learning (PBIL) is an EAPM; moreover, it can bridge the gap between machine learning and the EAs, hence enjoying several merits compared with other EAs. However, lukewarm efforts have been devoted to PBILs, especially the real coded PBILs, in the study of inverse problems in electromagnetics. In this regard, a novel real coded PBIL is being proposed in this paper. In the proposed real coded PBIL, a probability matrix is proposed to randomly generate a population, and the updating formulas for this probability matrix using the so far searched best solution and the best solution of the current population are introduced to strike a balance between convergence performance and solution quality. The proposed real coded PBIL algorithm is numerically experimented on several case studies and promising results are reported in this paper. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Design of electromagnetic devices has multimodal, multidimensional, and constrained characteristics. Metaheuristic approaches are good choices for tackling these design problems owing to their simulation-based property. As many electromagnetic design problems require a long computing time to solve (even on modern computers) and many heuristic approaches have been created, the major goal of this paper is to improve the effectiveness and robustness of existing approaches. This paper proposes an algorithm with the ensemble of two composite differential evolution (DE) ingredients. One ingredient is biased toward exploration and the other is biased toward exploitation. The probability of choosing which ingredient to search for new solutions is adaptively updated based on the previous performance of each ingredient. The algorithm is applied to solve a loudspeaker design problem with promising performance when compared with DE, artificial bee colony, two improved artificial bee colony algorithms, and a randomly choosing ingredients algorithm. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of the electric vehicle (EV) charging on node voltages and feeder currents of an electric grid can be reduced by upgrading its feeder capacity or deploying onsite photovoltaic (PV) and battery energy storage (BES), or their appropriate combination. It, in turn, enhances the quality of service (QoS) of the charging. This paper proposes an approach, which can enable a distribution network operator/business owner in finding the appropriate combination of the solutions above for providing the best QoS at a minimum cost while reducing the grid impact. The developed approach takes into account the previously scarcely incorporated characterization aspects (whether it is a constant power, constant current, or constant impedance load) of the EV charging. It has been applied to an IEEE 37-bus system in conjunction with the parking lots of the University of Queensland for a case study. The numerical results show that the proposed approach can effectively find the appropriate combination of the solutions above and the corresponding optimal sizes of PV and BES for a given EV penetration level or a given QoS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An optimum operating strategy is needed for early amortization of expensive hybrid electric vehicle powertrain parts. Especially in the operation of long-haul trucks, fuel costs have a large impact on the total cost of ownership, which is the key entrepreneurial figure in the transportation business. Combined with route information, a predictive powertrain control (PPC) system increases the fuel-saving. In a MATLAB/Simulink model-based generic approach, the operating strategy and the PPC are optimized using a genetic algorithm. The tradeoff between minimizing the fuel consumption and simultaneously maximizing the vehicle speed and gradeability to decrease time-related fixed costs has to be solved. This leads to a multi-optimization problem. The operating strategy is developed for a parallel hybrid topology that includes the fuel-saving functions of regenerative braking, boosting, shifting the load point, and electric drive only operation. The methodology developed answers the search for an optimum control parameter setup combining the operational strategy and the PPC system in long-haul operations. This paper describes the model building, simulation, and optimization of a rule-based control strategy. The route profile and fuel consumption of an internal combustion engine long haul truck were measured in a real-life test run. The recorded data are used for model building and to validate the simulation tool. With an optimized parameter setup, fuel-saving of up to 11% were achieved in theory with acceptable vehicle speed and gradeability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multiobjective evolutionary algorithms (MOEAs) have proven their effectiveness and efficiency in solving problems with two or three objectives. However, recent studies show that MOEAs face many difficulties when tackling problems involving a larger number of objectives as their behavior becomes similar to a random walk in the search space since most individuals are nondominated with respect to each other. Motivated by the interesting results of decomposition-based approaches and preference-based ones, we propose in this paper a new decomposition-based dominance relation to deal with many-objective optimization problems and a new diversity factor based on the penalty-based boundary intersection method. Our reference point-based dominance (RP-dominance), has the ability to create a strict partial order on the set of nondominated solutions using a set of well-distributed reference points. The RP-dominance is subsequently used to substitute the Pareto dominance in nondominated sorting genetic algorithm-II (NSGA-II). The augmented MOEA, labeled as RP-dominance-based NSGA-II, has been statistically demonstrated to provide competitive and oftentimes better results when compared against four recently proposed decomposition-based MOEAs on commonly-used benchmark problems involving up to 20 objectives. In addition, the efficacy of the algorithm on a realistic water management problem is showcased. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, hybridization of invasive weed optimization (IWO) and space transformation search (STS) are presented to solve, by applying multiple populations for multiple objectives individually, multiobjective optimization. This whole process is addressed as hybrid cooperative multiobjective optimization IWO (HCMOIWO). We carried out an application to solve system of nonlinear equations. In HCMOIWO, M single objectives are optimized simultaneously using the hybrid IWO with STS and all the nondominated solutions that are extracted from the group of parent weeds and offspring are stored in an archive, A . This archive is used not only to store nondominated solutions, but also to exchange information among subpopulations to explore the new search areas along the Pareto front. To exploit the nondominated solutions, a local search technique is adopted in HCMOIWO. The performance of HCMOIWO is evaluated with different sets of benchmark problems having different characteristics. Empirical results reveal the supremacy of HCMOIWO over state-of-the-art algorithms reported in recent literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The application of the cross entropy (CE) method to tone injection (TI) can make the peak-to-average power ratio (PAPR) of the orthogonal frequency division multiplexing (OFDM) signals reduced efficiently with great complexity savings. However, as a population-based search method, the CE method requires large samples to find a high-quality solution, which means higher complexity and more time consuming concerning convergence. To reduce the complexity while achieving promising PAPR performance, an improved CE based TI scheme is proposed in this paper. First, a structured extended constellation for rectangular quadrature amplitude modulation is designed to provide more freedom degrees. With proper parameter selection, the proposed extended constellation can offer more design flexibilities and achieve a better tradeoff between freedom degree and power increase. Then, by analyzing the impact of the subcarrier candidate population on the conventional CE based TI scheme, we derive an explicit expression for the determination of the size of the subcarrier candidate population. And, based on the prior information carried by the clipping signal, proper candidate subcarriers are selected. Finally, an improved CE based TI scheme is proposed, which can efficiently enhance the solution quality and greatly accelerate the convergence speed. Simulation results demonstrate that the improved CE based TI scheme achieves great improvements on the performance of PAPR, bit error rate, power increase and complexity compared with the conventional CE based TI scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Privacy concern in data sharing especially for health data gains particularly increasing attention nowadays. Now, some patients agree to open their information for research use, which gives rise to a new question of how to effectively use the public information to better understand the private dataset without breaching privacy. In this paper, we specialize this question as selecting an optimal subset of the public dataset for M-estimators in the framework of differential privacy (DP) in [1] . From a perspective of non-interactive learning, we first construct the weighted private density estimation from the hybrid datasets under DP. Along the same line as [2] , we analyze the accuracy of the DP M-estimators based on the hybrid datasets. Our main contributions are (i) we find that the bias-variance tradeoff in the performance of our M-estimators can be characterized in the sample size of the released dataset; (ii) based on this finding, we develop an algorithm to select the optimal subset of the public dataset to release under DP. Our simulation studies and application to the real datasets confirm our findings and set a guideline in the real application. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Generalization is an effective technique for protecting confidential information of individuals, and has been studied by proposing numerous algorithms. However, the previous works do not separate the protection against identity disclosure and sensitive disclosure. Thus, when the requirement of attribute protection is higher than that of identity protection, generalization for $l$ -diversity causes overprotection for identity and large mounts of information utility loss. This paper presents a novel approach, called cross-bucket generalization, as a solution to meet the problem. The rationale is to divide microdata into equivalence groups and buckets. First, it provides separate protection for identity and sensitive values, and the level of protection can be flexibly adjusted based on actual demands. Second, the sizes of equivalence groups and buckets are minimized as far as possible by only satisfying the protection requirements, which avoid the overprotection for identity and reduce information loss. The experiments we conducted illustrate the effectiveness of our solution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Improvements to overcome premature convergence of existing wind driven optimization algorithms are proposed. The specific measures being proposed include: 1) selection of the origin point of every parcel using dynamic and random tournament selection mechanisms to guarantee that there is a good balance between exploration and exploitation searches. In this paper, the “so far searched best solution” will be exploited to guide the movement of the randomly initialized parcels by introducing a newly designed mechanism; and a probabilistic mutation is designed; and 2) full utilization of the latest information accumulated from the searched history in order to guide the search toward the potential solutions to enhance convergences, and the “so far searched worst parcel” is used to shift the new parcel away from the parcel in issue. Numerical results on three case studies are reported to showcase the feasibility and the merit of the proposed method in solving both practical engineering design problems and mathematical test functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The optimization of electrical machines and energy-harvesting devices has been one of the hot topics of research in recent years. In this context, advanced computational intelligence algorithms are suitable design tools, since they are able to optimize complex systems with a large number of constraints and free design parameters. This paper presents the social network optimization (SNO): a new population-based algorithm developed to guarantee an effective and faster exploration of the solution domain with respect to traditional optimization techniques. The proposed technique will be described and validated with a benchmark case study. Finally, the optimization problem of a tubular permanent magnet linear generator will be formulated in the context of vehicular energy-harvesting systems. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Nodal voltages and feeder currents are acquired by running load flows for electric vehicle (EV) charging purposes. The impact of the charging is analyzed by either visually inspecting the voltages and currents or calculating appropriate impact indices. Optimal charging, on the other hand, is performed by incorporating the voltages and currents in charging strategies. Though the impact indices are frequently used for assessing the impact, their usage for optimizing charging has been minimal. Therefore, this paper develops probabilistic impact indices for nodal voltage violations and feeder overloading, which can be applied not only for investigating the impact but also for optimizing charging. Also, aggregated EV load demand of a large EV population is modeled by using a new combined state of charge (SOC)-based charging strategy in time series, for assessing the applicability of the developed impact indices for practical purposes. The combined SOC dynamically integrates arrival and departure of EV and delivered energy. The numerical results show that the proposed impact indices in conjunction with the SOC-based charging have numerous advantages over the conventional charging strategies aided by the load flows. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Heterogeneous information networks that consist of multi-type, interconnected objects are becoming increasingly popular, such as social media networks and bibliographic networks. The task of linking named entity mentions detected from unstructured Web text with their corresponding entities in a heterogeneous information network is of practical importance for the problem of information network population. This task is challenging due to name ambiguity and limited knowledge existing in the network. Most existing entity linking methods focus on linking entities with Wikipedia and cannot be applied to our task. In this paper, we present SHINE+, a general framework for linking named entitieS in Web free text with a Heterogeneous I nformation NEtwork. We propose a probabilistic linking model, which unifies an entity popularity model with an entity object model. As the entity knowledge contained in the information network is insufficient, we propose a knowledge population algorithm to iteratively enrich the network entity knowledge by leveraging the context information of mentions mapped by the linking model with high confidence, which subsequently boosts the linking performance. Experimental results over two real heterogeneous information networks (i.e., DBLP and IMDb) demonstrate the effectiveness and efficiency of our proposed framework in comparison with the baselines. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Tumor growth is associated with cell invasion and mass-effect, which are traditionally formulated by mathematical models, namely reaction-diffusion equations and biomechanics. Such models can be personalized based on clinical measurements to build the predictive models for tumor growth. In this paper, we investigate the possibility of using deep convolutional neural networks to directly represent and learn the cell invasion and mass-effect, and to predict the subsequent involvement regions of a tumor. The invasion network learns the cell invasion from information related to metabolic rate, cell density, and tumor boundary derived from multimodal imaging data. The expansion network models the mass-effect from the growing motion of tumor mass. We also study different architectures that fuse the invasion and expansion networks, in order to exploit the inherent correlations among them. Our network can easily be trained on population data and personalized to a target patient, unlike most previous mathematical modeling methods that fail to incorporate population data. Quantitative experiments on a pancreatic tumor data set show that the proposed method substantially outperforms a state-of-the-art mathematical model-based approach in both accuracy and efficiency, and that the information captured by each of the two subnetworks is complementary. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Principal component analysis (PCA) is an exploratory tool widely used in data analysis to uncover the dominant patterns of variability within a population. Despite its ability to represent a data set in a low-dimensional space, PCA’s interpretability remains limited. Indeed, the components produced by PCA are often noisy or exhibit no visually meaningful patterns. Furthermore, the fact that the components are usually non-sparse may also impede interpretation, unless arbitrary thresholding is applied. However, in neuroimaging, it is essential to uncover clinically interpretable phenotypic markers that would account for the main variability in the brain images of a population. Recently, some alternatives to the standard PCA approach, such as sparse PCA (SPCA), have been proposed, their aim being to limit the density of the components. Nonetheless, sparsity alone does not entirely solve the interpretability problem in neuroimaging, since it may yield scattered and unstable components. We hypothesized that the incorporation of prior information regarding the structure of the data may lead to improved relevance and interpretability of brain patterns. We therefore present a simple extension of the popular PCA framework that adds structured sparsity penalties on the loading vectors in order to identify the few stable regions in the brain images that capture most of the variability. Such structured sparsity can be obtained by combining, e.g., \ell 1 and total variation (TV) penalties, where the TV regularization encodes information on the underlying structure of the data. This paper presents the structured SPCA (denoted SPCA-TV) optimization framework and its resolution. We demonstrate SPCA-TV’s effectiveness and versatility on three different data sets. It can be applied to any kind of structured data, such as, e.g., N -dimensional array images or meshes of cortical surfaces. The gains of SPCA-TV over unstructured approaches (such as SPCA and ElasticNet PCA) or structured approach (such as GraphNet PCA) are significant, since SPCA-TV reveals the variability within a data set in the form of intelligible brain patterns that are easier to interpret and more stable across different samples. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In this paper, several studies on total ionizing dose effects on pinned photodiode CMOS images sensors are presented. More precisely, the evolution of a parasitic signal called random telegraph signal (RTS) is analyzed through several photodiode designs. It is shown that the population of pixels exhibiting this fluctuation depends on the design variants. This population also increases in a different way with the dose: the effects are not the same considering a low or high X-rays irradiation. Moreover, a statistical analysis is realized in order to better characterize the defects responsible for RTS. It turns out that an electric-field enhancement signature can appear in some specific cases. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Limiting the number of retransmissions in practical random access systems such as S-ALOHA and IEEE 802.11 systems has been used, since it was often considered as a way of preventing the system from being congested, by dropping packets in retransmission or letting users know network congestion after the maximum of retransmissions. Therefore, it can be expected that the smaller the maximum of retransmissions is allowed, the smaller the backlog size gets with a higher packet dropping probability. This paper explores how such a retransmission limit alters the shape of the stability and throughput regions of S-ALOHA systems. To do this, we first consider an S-ALOHA system, where two users with infinite queue length have different packet arrival rate and retransmission probability, which is called asymmetric user. Then, we obtain those results of the systems with $N$ symmetric users. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]